Sunday, October 5, 2014

Science, understanding and feelings

Naming
something and describing its physical properties is not understanding the thing
itself. If someone was to describe a person purely by their physical
characteristics rather than getting to know them then their description would
be extremely shallow and largely meaningless. That is science, describing
the "outside" nature of everything but not its interior nature, which
is generally assumed away, even though this is the only place where experience
can occur. Everything external is just "appearance"! And to get
a sense of the interior nature of something we need to engage our feelings-
something scientists are loath to do!

This helps explain why many of the most successful scientists and
thinkers have been those who engage both their intellect and feeling
nature when attempting to gain a new understanding. We need to get a
"feel" for something to truly understand it!